


Rat Saw God

by fighterofthenightman



Category: It's Always Sunny in Philadelphia
Genre: Alcohol, Canon Compliant, Canon Gay Character, High School, Homophobic Language, M/M, Unrequited Love, Vignette, gendered slurs, mention of dubious consent
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-04-06
Updated: 2015-04-06
Packaged: 2018-03-21 15:00:57
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,015
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/3696701
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/fighterofthenightman/pseuds/fighterofthenightman
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>
  <i>Dennis has already won, because if he's a god, then Mac is his loyal disciple.</i>
</p><p> </p><p> </p><p>(A series of vignettes chronicling Mac and Dennis throughout high school.)</p>
            </blockquote>





	Rat Saw God

**Author's Note:**

> This is an Always Sunny fic, so it has various content warnings associated with the series. I tried to list them in the tags but I'm sure I've missed a couple (or a lot).
> 
> The title's after a Rob Thomas novel which has nothing to do with this fic.

“So which one of you lowlifes is Ronnie the Rat?” 

The question startles Mac. He’s been watching the soccer team practice — shirts and skins — and he’s not at his most alert. The rest of the Freight Train are lounging around under the bleachers, smoking, ignoring the potential threat. They are, quite possibly, the worst lieutenants in existence.

This means Mac has to do all the security work by himself. He gives the newcomer an ocular patdown. (He’s great at those. It comes with being king of the school’s drug trade.) The kid’s on the unhealthy side of skinny, the unhealthy side of pale. Your average customer, basically. Threat level: zero.

Mac adopts his most intimidating stance. “It’s Mac, dude, not that other thing you said”. He’s seen the jerk around, he realizes; the kid gets called faggot a lot, and up close Mac can see why — his shirt’s too billowy, his eyes are made up, and he reeks of hair gel. (Mac wears product, too, but in a _manly_ way.)

“Alright, _Mac_ ”. The kid's tone is light and mocking. “Roll me a joint.”

Mac tries to say: money first, but the kid is suddenly in his personal space, McPoyle-style. “Listen, dude”, he says. “I don’t know you and I don’t know your product. You roll me a joint, I see if it’s any good and then I pay you. Alright? I got cash.” He leans back, flashes a twenty-dollar bill.

And that’s how it starts.

 

*******

“Is it the nose?” the kid — Dennis — asks him a month later. They've settled into a routine where he finds Mac under the bleachers and they smoke together.

“What?”

“Your nickname. Ronnie the Rat. Is it because of the nose?”

Mac, indignant, touches his face. “No!.. You’re one to talk.”

Dennis ignores the jab. “The hygiene? The personality?” Mac feels lightheaded, and it’s not just the pot. He’s proud of his business strategy — narcing on the other dealers, clearing up the market — but he doesn’t want to relay the dirty facts to Dennis. “It’s just a nickname”, Mac says heatedly. “It’s stupid, nobody calls me that anymore.”

“Alright”, Dennis says. “ _Rat_.” He smiles. His smile is ridiculous. He’s got perfect teeth — like, a hundred of them. And his eyes are so very blue. Every time they hang out, Mac notices all these new details.

Every time they hang out, Dennis asks more and more questions. It doesn’t sound like he’s gathering intel. It just sounds like he’s interested in what Mac has to say.

Interested in _Mac_.

Dennis asks: “How long have you known Charlie?” (Forever). And: “When did you start dealing?” (Sixth grade. Oh wait, seventh.) And: “Where do you even get the weed?”

“My dad’s friends”, says Mac.

“Your old man, he deals too?”

“Oh not now, but he used to. Meth and heroin, so, like, badass stuff, you know?” The words are out before he can think them through. Maybe Dennis won’t think it’s badass. Maybe he’ll just think it’s embarrassing. Dennis is so handsome and clever, so unlike everyone else in Mac’s life, that Mac is all too aware of how low-class he is in comparison. A convict for a father could make or break whatever weird connection they have.

“Huh”, Dennis says. Then, minutes later: “How about we hang out after school sometime. Charlie, too, and the other two guys.”

No part of it is phrased like a question, but Mac feels compelled to answer anyway. What he should say is: bad idea, bro. He should say: me and the guys, we got our own thing going. We don’t need some posh prick running around _ruining_ everything.

What Mac says is: sure. What he says is: you know where to find us.

He was never very good at self-preservation.

 

*******

Dennis Reynolds is not, as Mac later learns, a man of his word, but he does become a reliable presence in the Gang’s life. (That’s what they call themselves now, the Gang. Dennis refused to have anything to do with freight trains.) He almost usurps Mac’s leadership position — almost, but not quite, because he’s too posh, too _alien_ for Charlie and Dooley and Pete. Too alien for Mac, who feels confused whenever he tries to wrap his head around the situation. Dennis, it seems, has singled him out as his best friend, and the idea seems unbelievable, unnerving, exhilarating.

The friendship is a mountain of new opportunities. There’s the money and the beer it can buy. There’s the car, big enough for five (Mac rides shotgun, and Dooley gets ditched whenever Dennis’s sister hangs out with them, which is too fucking often). There are the parties they tag to, because Dennis hangs out with the popular kids and it makes him something close to popular and Mac and Charlie get a tiny share of the limelight. (Dooley and Pete are still at the bottom of the barrel. There’s no helping those two.)

 

*******

Dennis is no social god, despite his claims to the contrary, but for a faggy-looking guy he gets an unfair amount of action. “It’s the makeup”, he explains one day, slurring his words a bit. They are in Charlie’s tiny, smelly basement, dead drunk but still standing. (Charlie, Dooley, Pete have all passed out. Pussies.) “It makes me look hotter _and_ relatable. Girls _love_ it. It’s a genius strategy, you should try it.”

(Mac knows Dennis’s real strategy. It’s lots and lots of alcohol.)

“You’re not a bad-looking guy”, Dennis continues. “You could be getting fives or sixes, you just need to apply yourself more. You do want to bang chicks, don’t you, Mac?” 

Mac blinks once, twice. Dennis is uncomfortably close. It reminds Mac of all the times when Dennis leaned in, laughing, bumping his nose on Mac’s shoulder, all the times when Mac thought - hoped -

But those were accidents, Mac’s sure of it. Thankfully, _mercifully_ , they didn’t actually mean anything. This time feels different. Deliberate. Like Dennis is trying to get a rise out of Mac. To prove a point.

Like Dennis _knows_.

“Dude!” Mac sputters. “I’ve had chicks! I’ve had tons of chicks!” His cheeks grow hot. “I just don’t blab about it like some narc!”

Dennis smiles. “You know what I think? I... think you’re lying. I think you are a lying, sorry-ass virgin. Tell you what.” Dennis closes and opens his eyes, slowly, like the effort costs him something crazy. “I know you’re nervous about all the makeout stuff and...whatever. I want to help you, Mac. You’re a good guy. I just want to help you.”

Mac’s drunk, which is why his cat-like reflexes fail him — this time, of all times! — and before he can register what’s happening, Dennis is mashing his mouth onto Mac's. Mac feels scared, and sick, and like he's about to die.

The kiss is clumsy, and it only lasts a couple of seconds, which is a couple of seconds too long. (Minutes too short.).

Dennis is the one who pulls away.

“Mac”, he says. He has the nerve to smirk. “If this is your game, I feel sorry for all those chicks you're gonna bang.”

They never mention the kiss afterwards. They were so drunk, Mac can’t even be sure it happened at all.

 

*******

Dennis does this thing where he gets an actual steady girlfriend. Her name is Maureen Ponderosa and she has a dead tooth. Mac sees them around the school. They look good together, but only because you can’t see the tooth from afar and only because Dennis is hot enough for the both of them.

Dennis stops hanging out with the Gang. He’s probably off banging Maureen all the time, because she's got game (but also a dead tooth). To add insult to injury, Dee is still around, even if her brother is not. She buys weed off Mac and Mac tries to charge her extra, but Charlie screams: NO! YOU DON’T DO THAT TO CUSTOMERS! (Remind Mac to never go into business with that kid).

Charlie seems to like Dee, probably because she lectures him on the ways of females. “Stalking is off-limits”, she says, “It’s obsessive and creepy and you’ll never get that girl to date you this way. Just trust me.”

“ _Don’t_ trust her, Charlie, it’s a manly thing to do, and who cares what the Aluminum Monster thinks.”

Dee gives Mac a look that says: you’re one to talk, you Dennis-obsessed fuck. That says: I pity you, Ronnie the Rat.

And if Mac didn’t hate her before, he sure does now.

 

*******

Dennis breaks up with Maureen Ponderosa. Mac never learns why. It doesn’t matter either way because Dennis is back to running with the Gang.

Dooley and Pete sort of drift away. They’d been drifting away for a while now.

(Mac wishes Dee would drift away, too, but that bitch is clingy and stubborn and indestructible.)

 

*******

Dennis is his own God. He tells Mac as much one day.

“You’re just high, bro”, says Mac.

“I _am_.” Dennis sounds thoughtful. “I am _high_. And mighty.” He chuckles at his own bad pun. “I... am the captain of my soul.”

Sometimes, Mac thinks Dennis doesn’t even _have_ a soul. Back when they first met, Mac did an ocular patdown on Dennis and determined the threat level to be zero. He wants to go back in time and pound some sense into his old self. The threat level is _not_ zero; it’s through the roof, it’s off the charts, which is probably why it failed to register on that first day. There are no adequate measurements for all the wrong things that Dennis makes Mac feel. Mac’s confessions have become long and rambly; the urges, the thoughts, the daydreams all pile up into a huge pyramid of Dennis this, Dennis that.

He confesses Dennis’s sins, too, at least the ones he knows of. He doesn’t want his friend to burn in hell, however much that heathen deserves it. (Mac tried bringing him to church once, but Dennis just laughed. “Stop converting me”, he said. “Or I’ll return the favor and I will win.”)

(Dennis has already won, because if he’s a god, then Mac is his loyal disciple.)

 

*******

Mac has no ticket or tux or limo or date for the prom. Dennis is the only member of the Gang to go, actually. Typical Dennis.

Mac is on edge throughout prom night. He and Charlie and Dee started drinking at noon in order to get an early start, and they haven’t stopped. Dee looks red-eyed and miserable. Dee looks how Mac feels.

Mac thinks how this night is supposed to be the climax of the high school experience, the climax he’s missing. He thinks how it’s the perfect time to have sex, the sex he hasn’t yet had. (Even Charlie — Charlie! — is no longer a virgin.) He thinks how Dennis is out there having fun while he, Mac, is stuck at the world’s smallest, most depressing alterna-prom.

But maybe Dennis isn’t having fun. Maybe he drank too much and passed out. Maybe his date ditched him and he wants to off himself. The popular guys that Dennis went with, they wouldn’t care, wouldn’t help. If something happens to Dennis, it will be Mac’s fault. (And Charlie’s. And Dee’s. He’s not shouldering the guilt alone.)

Mac rises to his feet, wobbly but only a little so. “I’m gonna crash the prom.” He hopes it comes out light, like a joke. Dee and Charlie look at him, bleary-eyed. They’re wearing matching expressions, somewhere between amused and sad.

“Mac”, Dee says slowly, like she’s talking to an idiot child. “Mac, look. I know how you must feel —“

(She would. It’s not like _she_ got invited to prom, either.)

“— but you probably won’t even find Dennis there. He has _plans_  for the night and whatever.”

“Yeah, Mac!” Charlie echoes. “Who cares about Dennis! We got the beer, we got the pizza, prom’s stupid —”

Mac snorts. “I’m not going because of Dennis. I’m going for the loot. I’ll run in, I’ll steal some food and vodka, and I won’t share it with you assholes.” He’s out the door before anyone can stop him.

It’s only when he reaches the school grounds that he loses his nerve. He tries scaling the wall of the gym to get in through the window, but it's a half-hearted attempt with no actual point to it. (So what if he does get in? He’ll just stick out like a sore thumb.) He loiters under the windows, smoking, shuffling a bit to the shitty dance music coming from the inside.

“Do you know how pathetic you look right now?” a familiar voice says. There’s a chick leaning against the wall, the sophomore serving as Dennis’s date for the night. It’s an odd turn of events. (Mac scouts the surroundings, tries to see if anyone else is around.)

“...waiting on Dennis, like he’s some king. You’re so full of _shit_ , him and you and your cronies.” She sounds resigned rather than angry.

Mac says the first lie that pops into his head:

“I’m not waiting for Dennis! I’m here for you.”

“Really, McDonald.” There’s disbelief in the girl’s voice, but her face softens. “You... wanted to see me?” She detaches herself from the wall, takes a few steps toward Mac, stops, frowns. Mac can tell she’s not completely sober. “Do you, like, like me? Is that...is that why you act so weird when I’m around?”

“Yeah.” Mac’s mouth is dry, and the confession sounds convincingly nervous.

(He _is_ nervous.)

Everything happens really fast. They have sex in an empty classroom and it’s awesome. Mac feels no guilt, because running into Dennis’s date was not a coincidence. It was a sign from God. God’s way of saying: Mac, my son, you’ve done good all these years, here’s your prize, go be a man.  

Mac feels no guilt because the whole thing is Dennis’s fault in the first place. If Dennis was a good friend, a real friend, this wouldn’t have happened, because he’d have found Mac a date and they would have gone to prom together and each would have had a girl to sleep with. But Dennis is not a good friend, apparently, and Mac will take what he can get.

 

*******

Dennis finds out. Of _course_ Dennis finds out. 

“Someone slept with my prom date”, he growls, face blotchy with tears. He looks feral, murderous, ugly. “Someone thought he could HUMILIATE me by sleeping with my PROM DATE!”

Mac is terrified. Not for himself, even, but for Dennis. (And _then_ , also, for himself.) At the rate this scene is unfolding, his friend will get carted off to a loony bin, or have a heart attack, or worse.

“Bro”, Mac says. “She’s not worth it. She’s just a slut. Don’t let it get to you, bro.” He’s rubbing Dennis’s arms up and down. “You’re so much better than this. You can get any chick you want!”

Maybe Mac should confess and get the whole thing over with, end the friendship before it ends him. He can lay low until Dennis leaves for Penn in the fall. They’ll stop hanging out either way, why postpone the inevitable?

Mac almost goes through with it, too. But something stops him, makes him say: “I think I saw her with Tim Murphy a couple of hours ago?..” (Tim’s a jerk, and, given the chance, he would totally sleep with a girl already taken. It’s okay to blame him.)

“I will KILL him”, Dennis croaks. He’s still shaking but he sounds a bit more composed. “I will kill him and wear his skin like a suit, and eat his family.” He giggles, lets his head fall onto Mac’s shoulder, sobs. His hair tickles Mac’s cheek.

Mac stands very still, wills his stupid heart to stop hammering away.

(His RIOT shirt will have mascara smudged all over it, he can tell.)

A couple of minutes pass and Dennis goes quiet. Mac touches the top of the the other boy's head, runs his shaky fingers through the curls. It’s the only thing he can think of doing.

“You’re making this very gay right now”, Dennis says, voice muffled. He makes no effort to move away.

 

*******

Here’s what Mac knows:

Dennis will go to college where he will get new friends, some beefcakes smarter and cooler than Mac. He will also get a girl, 34D at the very least. He will graduate, marry, have kids, buy himself a dishwasher and, like, twenty TVs (all of them with cable). He will work 9 to 5 and earn insane amounts of money and go for drinks with his coworkers. He will run into Mac at some bar and pretend not to recognize him.

Mac will not go to college. He won’t even go to technical school. He will graduate from dealing weed to dealing angel dust, or meth, or heroin. He will live with his mom and drink with Charlie. He will go to prison, where he’ll be some hunk’s bitch. (He will then get super ripped and dominate the _shit_ out of that hunk and become top dog, but that’s about as optimistic as Mac’s visions of the future get.)

But here’s what Mac also knows:

They have weeks to go until fall. They are eighteen, all done with high school. They will never — never! — be more free than they are now. There’s all of July and half of August for smoking and drinking together, for sneaking into the movies, for driving down to Cherry Hill to shoplift (they tell Charlie it’s a neighborhood in Philly to trick him into coming).

The entire city, the entire _summer_ is theirs for the taking. Mac’s in his rightful place in the passenger seat of the Range Rover, right next to Dennis, and he feels young and alive and ready for all the cool shit tomorrow will bring. And if he ever hopes that tomorrow will bring a slightly different Dennis, a Dennis who’ll say: screw college, Mac, I got all I need right here...

...Well.

Mac can hope, and nobody has to know.

**Author's Note:**

> I tried making this fic a) not too derivative of other (much better) macdennis fics out there and b) not too full of angst or introspection. I may have failed on one or both accounts.
> 
> Also: Cherry Hill, NJ is an edge city of Philly and home to a bigass shopping mall.


End file.
